The Void Doesn't Judge

“Well, either the x-rays lied to me or you are spontaneously creating teeth. I’m going with the second one because it’s way cooler.”

“When was the last time you flossed? Your gums aren’t bleeding which means I’m either not doing this hard enough or you actually floss your teeth regularly”

“You don’t need to do a fluoride treatment I just want to go check my facebook for a second and this is the best excuse I can come up with. Don’t worry your insurance will cover it.”

“Take a whole handful of toothbrushes, I can’t order new ones in less ugly colors until these ones are gone.”

“Remember not to eat or drink anything for a half hour…or actually you know forget that go eat lemons and drink coffee right now. I make money based on peoples bad decisions, you should probably stop brushing your teeth too.”

1. Become aware of how and when you tearing yourself down.

2. Now that you can catch yourself doing it. Offer counters to the negative self talk. A really useful thing I read was to talk to yourself almost the way you would child. Gentle and patient. Even when they fuck up.

3. Take time to celebrate your small accomplishments. You’ve been attacking yourself for every little mistake. Apply that same fervor to the positive things in your life. Did the dishes even though you didn’t want to? Fuck yeah! Got up and took shower? YES!!! You are taking positive steps to feeling better. Celebrate it.

4. Make lists of things you’re good at/ like about yourself. The first time I did this the only two things in my list we’re that I liked my hair and I had good friends. It was start.

5. Don’t beat yourself up if you screw up steps 1-4. It’s counter productive. When I catch myself calling my self stupid for some mistake or other my response now is,“We don’t talk to ourselves like that anymore. What’s something constructive that could actually help solve the problem.”

Most of the time that seems to work. Not always. But more and more Everytime.

120,453 aids related deaths from 1980-1990

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So one day this girl walks in, wet rag to her face, and rushes over to me, phone in hand. “HAVE YOU HEARD OF THIS….eey-low veer-uh plant??”

I had. As we’re headed to the succulents, the story comes out. She’s heard that aloe vera is good for soothing pain and….she leans close, super embarrassed, and whispers that she just went and got her mustache waxed off, and….she shows me her lip. Huge, swollen, little red bumps. She’s tried to cover it with makeup, and that’s made it worse. She’s getting teary, because she’s scared, but she’s lucky because she’s talking to me!!

We talk about a lot of stuff, skin care, hair removal, I won’t bore y’all since it’s not flowers, but I was able to give her some advice on it, and I’m thinking “okay she might not need a plant, but whatever” but she’s DETERMINED TO COMPLETE HER MISSION.

We get to the succulents, and I give her my whole aloe vera spiel (I love these plants!! My mom has a huge one that’s almost 25 years old!!) and the girl nods very very seriously, and buys one.

Before she leaves, she comes over to me, dead ass serious and informs me that this plant is her “super buddy” now, and she’s named him Ralph.

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In my previous post I mentioned a nervous husband with his wife on their first Valentine’s Day. Here’s that story:

So the guy, for a mental image: mid-30s black man, very well dressed in a nice work suit, leather laptop bag. Normally I’m MILDLY wary of v well dressed men, because a lot of them are uh…Difficult.

This wasn’t one of them! He was super nervous, looking through all the mason jar arrangements Very Seriously. He looked super focused and was having trouble picking through them, so I went over to help.

This nice man has four ladies to get flowers for. His wife, and their three daughters. He wanted to get mason jars for the girls (all under ten) and he was hoping to find them in their favorite colors.

I realized what he was doing, which was trying to find jars with predominantly pink, red, and purple themes. And since it wasn’t super busy, I just smiled and told him we could rearrange the jars in the color themes.

He was so BLOWN AWAY. I think he wanted to cry when I busted out the ribbons and made big bows for each jar! (Appropriately colored!!) (also while I was scavenging for flowers, he whipped out his phone and showed me some of their pictures. They’re so cute!! These girls are his princesses, for sure.)

So now His Wife. We were already on a roll, so once his jars were ready we started patrolling for The Perfect Bouquet. And as it happens once you start talking about personal stuff, his story came out!

So the girls are from Wife’s previous marriage. He married her last year, and he really wants to show them that he Really Loves Them. Like, these girls are His GIRLS. His phone still has their entire wedding album!! He shows me her bouquet, and he wants to get flowers that are like the bouquet, but MORE.

So we have the choices down to three big bouquets. He legit stands there for a solid FORTY FIVE MINUTES, just comparing and thinking about it. (I left him to it, obv.)

He then comes up, very serious, and asks what it would cost to combine the two bouquets he’s picked. He’s also picked out a vase and a card, and some chocolate.

I quoted the price (Not Cheap) and he just nods, dead serious, and walks away and pays for it. Like up front. And I’m like, well shit, this needs to be the most amazing thing I’ve done. So I clear the counter, because this is a man on a mission, and we put those flowers together into a MASTERPIECE.

It’s hard to explain size, but these flowers were big enough to hide behind!! I got him a nice box and we carefully packaged this sucker for safe transport in his tiny sports car (the jars for his girls all fit in the drink holders, which was hilarious for reasons I can’t explain. Also hilarious is that he had to manually take the top off of the convertible to fit the flowers and was totally willing to drive home IN THE COLD with it down if he had to, luckily he didn’t)

I sent him on His Odyssey. He was SO HAPPY, and I was so happy because I love good experiences that have triple digit sales, and he was so patient and nice!! Love is real.

(He came back with his friends about three hours later, and they got nice flowers as well! They were all calling me Miss Hexalene by the end, and their good moods infected every other customer in the store, which is the best infection we get in flu season)

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One of my favorite customers is this nice old lesbian who comes in and has one of our potted orchids in hand, big smirk on her face.

“My wife hates roses, so I’m getting her thi—“ she breaks off and her eyes go HUGE.

So she’s carrying this normal orchid, about a foot and a half tall, purple, v cute. She has just spotted our cymbidium orchids behind me, which GOOGLE THESE PUPPIES!! Ours came in, they’re THREE FEET TALL without the pot. Half of the plant is bloomed into these big beautiful brown/orange flowers, and the other half is still growing. They’re massive and I love them.

So this old lesbian (she’s about 60, cute boycut with all white hair, nice mom jeans and one of those balloony pico shirts) very deliberately sets her Lesser Orchid down, and points to the cymbidium orchids. “THAT. I need that.”

She’s got the absolute best shit-eating grin on her face, btw. She can’t stop laughing. She’s even crying with laughter a bit and while we’re strapping These Beasts (SHE BOUGHT FOUR OF THEM??) into her truck, she tells me about how her wife hates roses because she got a thorn tip stuck in her hand permanently as a kid. So every Valentine’s Day she goes on a hunt for the weirdest flower/most out of season flower she can find. These orchids are the best find she’s had since the 80s, when she brought home a massive Silver Vase Plant that’s still alive 30 years later.

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And after like three seconds, where we’re all trying to figure out the punchline because the story clearly hadn’t ended, and John Mulaney quietly says, “Has there been tinfoil on my buttons the whole goddamn show?”

She was, in fact, with him, and she did tell him her date’s name. John Mulaney considered this, looked around, and unplugged his microphone. Leaning in to us, he told us that we were going to trick this guy so fuckin hard. He said, “At some point during the show, I am going to stop and say, ‘Well, you guys know what they say here in Ft. Lauderdale,’ and then you guys are all going to scream back ‘WE LOVE MILKSHAKES!’ He’ll be so confused.”

He then continued on with the show as normal, the drinks guy returned to his seat, and that was that for quite a long time. We thought he had forgotten about it until, at some point during what I believe was his McDonald’s drive-thru bit, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “You guys know what they say here in Ft. Lauderdale…”

belle, local furry:

big, big, big words. when my second graders come in, one of them says: we should just kill them all, and be done with it. 

i remind him we don’t talk about killing at school. i tell him we absolutely do not talk about killing people. and then i ask: where did you even get this idea.

his dad, of course. talking to his mom. it probably wasn’t something he was supposed to overhear. and what am i going to do about parent politics, you know? i remind my student about kindness. i make sure to read a book about love and acceptance. what does a second grader know about killing, huh?

in fifth grade after-school, we make a poster. i write the words “if i could change the world, i would…” in big swooping font. since i spend most of my day with children under 7, i expect answers like “i would have wings” or “i would be a princess.” i expect them to be children.

instead, i get “i would change gun laws so my friends don’t have to die,” “i would stop companies from hurting the environment” “i would keep everybody safe, no matter who they are or where they came from.” 

big, big, big ideas. we forget how much kids are sponges. how much they soak up everything. how quickly they learn to read, to understand, to form their own knowledge and passions. what am i supposed to do. they’re bolstered by the internet. i can’t tell them to turn their heads from what they already know is true.

on the playground, we have to call one of the boys in again and explain to him that he cannot run around screaming “grab them by the pussy” even if he heard those words from the president. later, this same boy talks loudly about russia and fake news. i have to kindly ask him to cut the politics down while he’s at school. he’s scaring everyone with talks of nukes.

im scared, everyone. a girl comes up to me and looks at her best friend. he is a mexican student. “is he going to have to leave?” she asks.

The NFL: